Santiago De Chile

Hola!

So that was the longest day of my life. About 35hours or so I think. Spent cursing Aerolineas Argentinas, sleeping, talking to a Columbian farmer and attempting to navigate the maze that is Buenos Aires airport!

We finally arrived in Santiago De Chile after delays a plenty from our friends at Aerolineas. Arrived at 1.30am local time and were amazed to see our taxi driver Lehner awaiting us at the airport! This late flight was due to a three hour wait at Auckland, on a flight already delayed by several hours and then another hour or so at Buenos Aires due to lack of organisation and a quick change in the weather as we were about to take off. Buenos Aires seemed to go on and on, literaly forever. I could see no end to the lights. A city of 13.5million people I'm told.

Started our exploration of Santiago with a trip along the Metro, oh how it puts public transport in Australia to shame. One ticket (about 70c worth) gets you into the underground and you don't pay any more until you get out. This could be the entire length of the city! The amazing thing though, is that a train comes about every minute. We got off at University De Chile and walked up through the mall to Plaza De Armas (City center pretty much). We were confronted by many a street artist and a giant Christmas tree... with Coca-Cola adverts for decoration! In contrast to this tacky seasonal flavor was the amazing Cathedral...incredible architecture and monuments. We then continued to Cerro Santa Lucia, where we were confronted by a 'student' selling poetry for who knows what cause. She had the haggle down pat though, switching to English when we pleaded ignorance to her Spanish. We didn't give in though and continued onto climb the very steep steps that were, toward the top, about a foot high and only 5cm wide. Excellent view of Santiago and the mountains from the top though, so it was well worth the effort! We also found a shop...that sells Ocarinas! Going to buy one next week and see if I can find me Epona.

Camera battery died early on in Santiago exploration so only minimal photos this time around.

Adios,
Steven.

Hello from NZ

So we finally made it abroad. Our flight from Sydney was delayed significantly, in what seems to be a pattern for Aerolineas Argentinas - our flight out of Auckland tomorrow is delayed as well. But yes, we arrived in Auckland at about 7.00pm local time on Tuesday. Our friend Jeremy (Gemstar) met us at the airport and proceeded to give us an unintentional tour of the industrial backstreets of Auckland. Nonetheless we eventually got to his house in the suburbs.

We spent today walking around inner city Auckland, even getting to the top of the Sky Tower - apparently the tallest structure in the Southern Hemisphere (though Steven and Luke think a new tower on the Gold Coast is actually taller). Tonight Gem's cousin Jon is coming over, which should be good - we know him (and Gem, actually) from our old World of Warcraft days. We found out our flight to Buenos Aires, and subsequently Santiago tomorrow has also been delayed - by about 4 hrs, putting it at 10pm. We're having a great time thus far, though we're pretty tired - weird timezone shifts combined with Luke's snoring have worn us out.

I'm trying to upload a few photos, but it's not going well - so hang tight?

- Adios

:3

Aiye! Una mica estola me despe o medicacion! Esto es una locura!

Test

So apparently there's some doubters as to if this actually works or not so. Here's to proving you wrong.

Paqta ratukamalla q'ipikunata saqiyukuykiman kaypi?

Soon...

Rimaykullayki!

So I bought a Quechua phrasebook, very interesting language grammatically but er...letters slammed together that should never be seen next to each other. The five syllable 'Hello' is a great example.

Anywho, two weeks and a day till we leave! And only one day until first exam. Oh dear. I...think we're ready to go? So much to organize.

Huq kutikama

One Two, One Two

Hi Ho, Robert here.
Just testing out some of the functionality here - you can see the map I've just added to our sidebar. Additionally, the picture you see here is for testing purposes (nothing exciting, just the tree outside my bedroom window). Seems pretty small. Will have to experiment with adding galleries via Flickr or the like.
It's 27 days now until we arrive in Auckland, New Zealand for our brief stopover, 29 days until we arrive in Santiago, Chile - Our 'true' destination. Steven and Luke are about to begin the gruelling final weeks of University, so it's up to me to figure out the last minute stuff like setting up this website.
It's our intention that this be our primary means of communication with the people back home in Australia. Of course, this is contingent on finding reasonably reliable Internet communication periodically, which may be difficult in certain areas of the central Andes! Nonetheless, we will do our best to keep you all informed. Hopefully you can subscribe to this blog and be notified by email when we update, though I'll have to check on that.
Anyway, that's all for now.